CHAPTER 4. VERY FIRST WORDS
Teaching reading from scratch
This part of the program is designed to cater particularly for anyone starting to teach their child from scratch, e.g. child who is ready to begin to learn to read possibly from about age three and a half.
But if that if your child finds it too hard because he is too young or not ready, take it very gently or leave it for a couple of months and concentrate on pre reading activities.
If you begin here, don’t expect your three year old to be writing sentences unaided in twelve weeks. But he could be reading sentences and simple phonic readers.
Aim of this chapter's activities
You are actually aiming to teach your child to recognize his first words.
Starting out.
This session gives pretty clear suggestions, but always modify them to suit your situation.
Don’t do this session now if there is a problem - your partner is grumpy about it, your baby is having his six o’clock yell, your preschooler wants his tea. Get off to a good start or you may never come back to it again!
All you will need is a double set of card with your names on them.
Every week you will need a good supply of small rectangular cards. They can be larger - like 220x80mm if you have lots of them available, but smaller ones, 80x20 mm, are fine. Once you decide on a size, make all the cards the same size or your child will remember that “is” is the short card and “aeroplane” the long card, without even looking at the shape of the word.
You can by card at an art shop or office works. Otherwise there are lots of things, cereal or shoe boxes, that can provide good cardboard - or.
Learning his own name - what you need
I am presuming that your child already can recognize his own name or at least has seen it often.
But if you think this needs more practice, make sure you have it written large and frequently - above his bed, on his lunch box, on all his drawings and paintings. Draw his attention to it and the letters in it. Get him to trace it with his finger. Cut it up and get him to put it together again, copying a model.
This will mean that at least one of the words in session 1 is familiar. Don't start session 1 until it is.
What you will need:
The child to recognize their own name (see above)
Three or four people including the child you are introducing to words - cooperative members of the family, other adults.
Cards with the names of the people printed on them, at least two of each card. e.g. mummy daddy Jack Sam (including his own name)
Don’t forget use lower case letters! (Except for the initial letter).
If these people are really not available, use photos of some well-known and loved people. It is a good idea anyway to make a reference card for each of these words with a photo or just a drawing (perhaps by your child) - with their names underneath for future revision (written the same size as your cards). That way you can work with the reference cards if it is hard to get the family together again!
Learning his own name - what to do
Game: matching name cards to the right person.
Say: “We are going to play a game with cards and we are going to each have our own card with our name on it.” You then give everyone their own name card and they hold it so it can be seen.
Ask everyone to read his or her card.
Ask your beginner reader to read everyone’s card. He might like to trace over each card.
Then produce four more cards with the same names written on them.
Ask your child to see if he can give everyone their own proper name card. If he just gives out any card you can say “Is this the same as my card? Look at it carefully. See if you can find one that is just the same as my card”. (Holding it up the right way helps).
Keep going until he can give everyone their card and then give him much applause.
Put the cards back in the middle and ask him to try again.
More clapping and praise.
Game: “Hide and seek” with the cards - then give the card to the right person
Now you could hide the cards around the room- behind the chairs or sofa - not too hard to find because the main task is to find the card and then work out who it belongs to and, after checking the cards they are holding, give it to the right person.
Now someone else can have a turn of hiding the cards, and the beginner reader who is the centre of attention and loving this, can have another go at finding them and delivering them to the right person. He will soon get very good at this - but don’t go on to make it harder e.g. adding more cards - this is enough for one session.
Repeat in a couple of days
Try this again the next day or in a couple of days - don’t expect he will be sure to remember each name. Be very careful not to be critical if he doesn’t, but just go through the same procedure.
NOTE: Don’t ever put him in the embarrassing position of having to say he can’t tell you the name on the card - there always should be something to which he can refer to work it out.
Extension Game: “Which hand will you have?”
Have a card in each hand behind your back. Let him choose one hand to see, and if he says the word right, he can have the card. When he has several cards, he has a turn. You say most words offered correctly, asking if you are correct. Say some select words – like his name – incorrectly and ask if you are correct.
Using only reference cards
The whole session can be (re)done with pictures for reference rather than a person, or toys or pets or different Thomas the Tank engine trains, but it will be much harder to get the level of interest which may be necessary to introduce a completely new concept if it does not particularly grab your child.
Continue to Practice these words
Because these names are likely to be those you will use frequently it is quite important to make sure that once they have been established and known they are not forgotten. So go through the pile of cards every now and then to make sure they are remembered.
Use them in the games introduced in the second set of activities in Chapter 5.
What are you actually doing?
You are teaching the most basic skill of learning to read. You are teaching your child to look really carefully at the shape and composition of a word and then remember what that particular shape means.
Some traps
Try to have names that are not too similar. Even “grandad” and “grandma” are quite difficult as they are very similar. “mummy” and “daddy” or “mum” and “dad” are good because they don’t have initial capital letters and the child has to look further than just the first letter to identify the word.
Be careful to have the form of the name that your child normally uses - e.g. “Lizzie” rather than “Elizabeth” if that is what she most commonly uses.
Four words, including his own name, already partly known, is the right level to start at. If you only have three people, you can use a pet if it is reasonably cooperative - you might have to tie the card around the cat’s neck.
Don’t forget this is not supposed to be solemn, but lots of fun, if you can make it so.